Merry Masquerade

A festive Pride and Prejudice variation novella. Elizabeth Bennet is furious when she discovers Mr. Darcy has removed, with Charles Bingley in tow, to London for Christmas, seeing in it a blatant attempt to undermine the relationship that had begun to flourish between Bingley and her sister. When the Gardiners invite Elizabeth and Jane to stay with them in Gracechurch Street over the festive season, she seizes on the opportunity to repair the damage Darcy has caused and reunite the lovers, little realising her own heart is in danger, and from Darcy himself. Fitzwilliam Darcy acted in the best interest of his friend in preventing an unequal match – or so he thought. Reacquainted with both Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, he is forced to acknowledge his first, hasty assessment of both sisters was utterly false. Can he salvage not only his friend's hopes of future happiness, but his own, before the year is out? This is a regency Pride and Prejudice variation novella.

Clarissa de Vrais, an heiress in flight from intolerable insult at the hands of her stepbrother and his dissolute friends, takes service as an abigail with the delightfully eccentric Lady Alderley and her dashing nephew, Robin. Lady Alderley, in financial difficulties as always, has the brilliant notion of presenting her beautiful new maidservant to the Ton as a lady of quality. Then, if she can but snare a wealthy husband, they may all profit. But this lighthearted interlude comes to an end when a chance acquaintance brings her into contact with her persecutors, and she must turn to Robin to shield her from a murderer.

What happens when you... Mix one woman who's determined to show her husband exactly what he threw away with his cheating ways. With a man who has never cheated on his wife and has no idea why she's divorcing him. Stir in a good-hearted, meddling owner of La Petite Mort Club. Turn up the heat with a masquerade ball. You get one hot Christmas Eve at La Petite Mort Club. They may not get a Christmas miracle but they will definitely have a happy ending. Craig doesn't want a divorce. He loves his wife and has not ever cheated on her, no matter what she believes. None of that matters because he's been kicked out of his house and served with divorce papers. Liz is devastated that her husband of twenty-three - she thought - wonderful years of marriage has been cheating on her. And not just with one woman or even two, but an entire sex club full of younger women.

A festive Pride and Prejudice variation novella. Elizabeth Bennet is furious when she discovers Mr. Darcy has removed, with Charles Bingley in tow, to London for Christmas, seeing in it a blatant attempt to undermine the relationship that had begun to flourish between Bingley and her sister. When the Gardiners invite Elizabeth and Jane to stay with them in Gracechurch Street over the festive season, she seizes on the opportunity to repair the damage Darcy has caused and reunite the lovers, little realising her own heart is in danger, and from Darcy himself. Fitzwilliam Darcy acted in the best interest of his friend in preventing an unequal match - or so he thought. Reacquainted with both Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, he is forced to acknowledge his first, hasty assessment of both sisters was utterly false. Can he salvage not only his friend's hopes of future happiness, but his own, before the year is out? This is a regency Pride and Prejudice variation novella of approximately 20 000 words.

On his way to deliver a splendid necklace to the Sun from the Moon, Jack Hare is diverted by a series of odd characters and when he finally reaches his destination he realizes that the necklace is missing. The reader is invited to answer several riddles and solve the mystery from clues given in the text.

The familiar figure of Shakespeare, the world’s greatest dramatist, belongs to universal culture. Little is known of his life, more of his plays, yet countless analyses and explanations of them have been written by distinguished experts on literature and aesthetics. Rónaszegi has no wish to join the ranks of these scholars and has instead chosen an unusual format. In his own words, he has written ‘a sketch novel’, albeit one that is filled with erudition, perceptiveness, appraisal, and fascinating information. Every one of Shakespeare’s plays contains a reference to the theatre and acting, the most famous being the lines from As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage.’ But it was not acting itself that inspired the playwright, nor was he absorbed in the minutiae of everyday theatrical life – Shakespeare’s great insight is that the whole of human life is nothing more than endless posturing and posing. One moment we are masking our personalities and concealing our intentions, while the next we are acting in character or responding to the expectations of those around us. We perform not to an audience but to ourselves and to one another. This, then, is the real secret that Rónaszegi uncovers, while modestly acknowledging in the course of his brilliant narrative that no one will ever be able to unravel the mystery of Shakespeare’s genius. 1

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.